Stephen took a second look at the additional stacks of books before her. “French… Italian… Greek… Scholarly friends left translation notes in all of these?”
“Oh, no. All the other books are part of our personal library. I read those for sport.”
For sport. Stephen gave her a crooked smile. “I think you are a very Wynchester-y Wynchester.”
“Except in one way,” came a voice from behind him. “She and Jacob are pacifists.”
Stephen turned to see Tommy approach.
She arched her brows. “Shouldn’t you be off tinkering on one of your… tinklings?”
“Stephen is no mere tinker,” said Philippa.
Tommy looked at him with interest. “Oh?”
Stephen was just as baffled as Tommy was. “I don’t know what she means.”
“False modesty, if I’ve ever heard it,” scoffed Philippa. “Our Mr. Stephen Lenox has registered no fewer than one hundred and forty-seven patents in just over a decade, several of which have revolutionized industries, and many of which are important components of conveniences you take for granted.”
He stared at her. “You know how many patents I’ve registered?”
“My reading circle devoted an entire summer to studying inventors and their inventions, and your works took up a disproportionately large segment of our time.”
“Wait. You knew who I wasbeforeyou took this case?”
“Patent sixty-five: an automatic cutlery cleaner. Patent one hundredand four: an apparatus for automatically raising and lowering chandeliers. You are arguably England’s most important living inventor!”
“Never test a bluestocking,” whispered Tommy.
Stephen’s skin warmed. To Philippa’s reading circle, he wasn’t some anonymous inventor of obscure creations. He was Mr. Stephen Lenox, a real person. His step was lighter than it had been all morning.
He was not as surprised as he would have expected a month ago to realize a growing part of him wished he were a permanent part of the joyful, chaotic, and accomplished Wynchester clan. After all these years, Stephen was amused to discover himself not to be a reclusive misanthrope after all. That was a misdiagnosis. It turned out, he simply had not yet found his people.
Until now.
“Tell us about your house,” Tommy said. “Is it tiny bachelor lodgings, or some sprawling estate filled to the brim with gigantic contraptions like those in the Great Hall?”
“It’s a formidable size,” he admitted, “with lots of room for machines, though I tend to take them down after a few months and reuse the materials into something new and better. Which means there’s plenty of room for…”
Elizabeth. An arsenal of swords. Visits from family.
Tommy’s eyebrows shot up. “Plenty of room for more machines?”
Stephen’s throat grew tight. The nonchalant response he’d intended to make garbled on his tongue.
Saving him from replying, Marjorie chose that moment to skid into the room with a dash of moss-green paint on the tip of her nose and her husband, Adrian, trailing close behind.
“There you are!” She hunched over, hands on her knees, to catch her breath. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Why? Is there a problem with one of the machines?”
“Oh, we finished setting up over an hour ago.”
“An hour ago?” Stephen dug out his pocket watch and gaped at the time. It was almost nine o’clock already.
Marjorie stepped forward, an object enclosed in her fist. “To thank you for your lovely gift, Adrian and I made you a good-luck token for the battle ahead.”
Stephen held out his hand.
